Night Game (GhostWalkers, #3)(3)

“He used viruses to introduce the therapy to the cells.” Her voice faltered for the briefest of moments, but she carried on, her chin up. “I don’t think he wanted to take any chances with me, and he could use me as the control subject.”

“What was in the file that I should know about?”

“Flame had cancer. The symptoms presented nearly the same as leukemia. Bruising, fatigue, abnormal bleeding, bone and joint pain. All of it. He put it into remission, but…” She trailed off.

“But he didn’t stop. He continued to enhance her cells.”

Lily looked miserable as she nodded. “Yes. He continued to experiment on her. One of the problems when using a virus to infect the cells is the body produces antibodies to fight it off. By the second or third round, it does no good to use that virus.”

“So he made up another one.”

“Several of them. He obviously wanted to perfect his technique for later use. I think all of us girls were his first tries—”

“You mean his expendable rats,” Gator interrupted harshly. He curled his fingers into tight fists. “You were all expendable. No one wanted you. And he didn’t like her, did he? She was a lot of trouble because she was so strong-willed, just as Dahlia was—Dahlia, who was raised in a sanitarium, not a home.”

“That’s true, Gator, but thankfully, although Dahlia is enhanced, she has never had cancer. Nor could I find references to cancer in the files of any of the other girls he experimented on.”

Lily pressed her fingertips just above her eyes. “I haven’t gone through everything in Flame’s file but the cancer returned several times and each time he adjusted the virus and continued doping her after he put the cancer in remission. She’s very enhanced.”

“And you suspect I am as well.”

She bit her lip, but nodded again. “Are you, Gator? Can you run faster, jump higher? None of you have ever mentioned it to me—not even Ryland.”

He avoided the question. “Are you warning us that anyone who might be enhanced is susceptible to cancer?”

“I have no idea,” she said truthfully. “I believe he was working on a way to prevent the doping from stimulating the wrong cells. I think he used Flame to perfect his technique so he could make certain you and the others had fewer problems.”

“Charmin’ son of bitch, wasn’t he?” Gator stuffed the jeans into the duffel bag with a short violent stabbing motion. “He used her like a damn lab rat.”

“It’s worse than that, Gator. I hope to God I’m wrong. I can barely conceive of the idea that the man I knew as my father could have been such a monster, but I don’t think he wanted to cure Flame. I think he knew she’d get sick, and he figured her adopted parents would bring her back to him.”

“But they didn’t.”

“Not that I can see. But the chances of the cancer recurring seem likely. Regular treatment for leukemia would help, but it wouldn’t cure her. The cancer is caused by one particular wild cell.”

“And he knew that.”

Lily nodded reluctantly. “Without a doubt he knew it. The first time he experimented with putting the cancer into remission, he used a virus to insert DNA that caused the cancer cells to self-destruct by producing a protein that was deadly to itself. The second time he used a method of actually forcing the cancer cells to produce a protein that identified itself to her immune system, thereby causing her immune system to attack in a concentrated force, successfully destroying the cancer. It was brilliant really, far ahead of his time.” There was a trace of admiration in Lily’s voice she couldn’t hide from him.

Fury swept through him. Ugly. Dangerous. A snarling demon triggering an aggressive response. Gator turned his back and dragged air into his lungs. He noted the way the walls expanded and contracted, the movement nearly imperceptible. “If he was so damned brilliant and successful at destroying cancer, Lily, why didn’t he report his findings to the world? Why did he secret away his data in a hidden laboratory?”

“Any hospital, university, or private facilities involved in human experiments such as the Whitney Trust are required to have Institutional Review Boards to ensure the research complies with Department of Health and Human Services regulations for the protection of human subjects. And any experiment involving gene insertion must be approved in advance by an Institutional Biosafety Committee.”

He turned to lock his gaze with hers. “So bringing unwanted orphans into the country, virtually buying them and using them as human lab rats to experiment with genetic enhancement, psychic enhancement, and cancer doesn’t fall into the accepted regulations? He would have been labeled the monster he was and he would have been jailed. He tortured that child. And now she’s out there somewhere, isn’t she, Lily? She’s out there and you want her found because you and I both know she’s very, very dangerous and she’s got a hell of a mad on for the Whitney Trust, doesn’t she?”

“I want her found because she needs help and she’s one of us,” Lily corrected, her chin up. When he continued to look her steadily in the eyes her gaze shifted down to her hands.

“Spit it out, Lily.”

“He also found a way to stimulate the growth of tumors with genetic therapy and then he caused the cancer cells to cut off their own blood supply so the tumor withered and died. That kind of research is invaluable.”